So I have learned a lot about using Photoshop over the last year, by making graphics for the site. I’m by far just starting out and today I was reminded of that. I have spent hours working on the crazy patterns used on graphics, dubbed “Rising Sun”. The idea is pretty popular across the internet and has gained in popularity since the first time I tried my hand at it, using the lovely pen tool.
Today I ran across this website here that offers a brush set with Rising Sun patterns. Now I can easily create the same graphics in about 3 seconds, instead of about 8 minutes or so it was taking me. Don’t you just love the internet?
I ran across another Mac shareware team I’d never heard of, Bruji, makers of the “Pedia” software, such as Bookpedia, CDPedia, and DVDPedia. Looks a lot like Delicious Library, except split up into different applications.
What is interesting here is the little gem I found on the website in some sample code and open-source frameworks. The Bruji team released a framework allowing Cocoa developers to grab barcodes from an internal or external iSight or other firewire camera.
This clip is just wonderful, a quick musical about the iPhone. What makes it even better is that the author got people waiting in line at the Manhattan store to sing along too.
I’ve given much thought to the wonders of tabbed navigation in website design, but today I ran across a wonderful example that is brilliant in it’s simplicity.
What I’m trying to accomplish is a row of tabs, but the current selected one being a different color. There are all kinds of ways to accomplish this, but here is one developer’s beautiful solution for static pages. Just wrap each page in a different div. Example being, homepage has <div id=”home”>, the Help page has <div id=”help”> and so forth. On the links that make up the navigation, assign each link a class, such as “navigation-link”. Then in the stylesheet, just add something such as
#home .navigation-link, #help .navigation-link { //stuff to make it stand out }
That works wonders. However, in my case, I’m trying to accomplish the same thing on dynamic pages, created through a WordPress theme. I have a dirty solution written in Javascript, but I’m going to work on writing it in PHP if at all possible so that it doesn’t have that momentary lag that the page has right now. You can preview the work at http://www.macfanatic.net/testing/
Javascript Code for changing the class of a link to reflect it’s currently selected:
window.addEvent(’domready’, function() {
var a_list = $$(’#nav li a’); // Array of nav link elements
var i = 0;
while ( i < a_list.length ) {
if ( (window.location.pathname).search(a_list[i].getProperty(’href’)) != -1 ){
//alert(”Match found at location ” + i +” with name ” + a_list[i]);
a_list[i].addClass(’current’);
}
i++;
}
});
Also note that this uses the MooTools library, which you can download here.
I’ve been working on a new homepage for the site when I’ve had time over the last month or more and it’s finally online. Just check out http://www.macfanatic.net and leave a few comments about the design or if you have any problems with it.
So I finally had the opportunity to play on an iPhone this past weekend, and it was an experience. I wasn’t caught up in the hype around the iPhone until recently when Apple posted some videos online about using the phone. After viewing those, I decided that I wanted to play on one myself and see if it was as great as it seemed.
I went to my local Apple Store and waited for a few minutes so I could get to on of the eight or ten iPhones available on display. Just picking the phone up from the dock and sliding your finger across the screen to unlock it was a wonderful experience. The device is superbly made, the screen is gorgeous, and all the flicking and pinching and tapping works like a charm. I even believe that the keyboard would be easy to get used to after using it for a few more hours. And it is the perfect video iPod with that gorgeous screen!!
The only thing I would have liked to try out (I played with everything, even the YouTube app) was making an actual call, just to hear how loud and clear the call would be. Other than that, and the price point, I would have bought one in a second as it was perfect in all respects.
And as a delightful sidenote, the website worked perfectly on the iPhone, though it was a tad slow to load, even on the Wi-Fi at the Apple Store. If any of you out there have iPHones and would like to share some thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
I, along with numerous other users out there, have complained about the lack of full-screen support in QuickTime player for years now. Especially since iTunes was updated for video support awhile back and you could watch videos in full-screen from iTunes, but not within QuickTime. You had to pay the fee for a QuickTime Pro Key.
Today, that has changed.
Apple previewed Leopard at WWDC 2007 and one of the technologies called QuickLook, makes heavy use of full-screen video support directly from within the Finder. After the WWDC keynote, speculation that Leopard would provide full-screen support without the need to purchase a QuickTime Pro Key arose. With QuickTime 7.2 released today for Tiger, you can finally watch all videos full-screen without the need for a Pro Key.
QuickTime 7.2 addresses critical security issues and delivers:
- Support for full screen viewing in QuickTime Player
- Updates to the H.264 codec
- Numerous bug fixes
QuickTime 7.2 is a free update. Check Software Update.
I went to Burger King this morning to grab a biscuit and a water, a cheap way to eat breakfast on the go, for about 2 dollars. However, it seems that Burger King is about to go bankrupt because the wonderfully cheerful voice informed me, “Are you aware that water is no longer free? It’s 18 cents plus tax.”
You should scroll up and read that again.
Burger King cannot give me a free water. So, I politely told the woman that I couldn’t afford the water, so I might as well not buy the biscuit either. And I drove off.
Why does this infuriate me so much? The pure principal behind the matter is maddening. I’m a starving college student. When I do eat “out”, I have to do so cheaply. Hence the trips to Taco Bell (where you can eat for like 3 dollars) and other fast food places. I get water because it is free, and over the last couple years, I’ve taken a liking to it again. But no, Burger King won’t give me a water for free. Evidently I, and others, have been eating into their profit margins (oh, a pun) and we have to go.
So, if you’re debating going to Burger King or somewhere else, I urge you to leave Burger King behind. Unless you’re just fine with paying 18 cents plus tax for a water.
I’ve been pretty dormant here on the site recently, lavishly enjoying the summer weather, friends and all that, so now that we’ve said that, let’s move on.
In the July edition of macCompanion, I wrote a simply marvelous article for anyone who has ever wondered what went into creating a basic widget for Dashboard in Tiger. I give a step-by-step guide, from downloading a free copy of Dashcode for Tiger, customizing the widget interface, and writing the Javascript to perform computations and read/write widget preferences.
If I’m further inspired or receive interest, I’ll continue work on the sample project provided. It is now one of my commonly used widgets (hence the reason I originally created it) and I’d like to share with everyone. Now that I have your interest, check the article out below.
I was amazed at the interface and reliability of Newsfire about 2 years ago. Now, the product is starting to show its age and the lack of feature additions in the updates doesn’t help matters. So, as of late, I have been on the lookout for a new RSS reader. I gave Newslife a spin back in the beta days and wasn’t too impressed. However, the 1.0 release shaped up to be a big affair and I’ll be taking another look at this software shortly. From the press release:
ThinkMac Software is excited to announce the immediate release of NewsLife 1.0. NewsLife is a super easy to use RSS news aggregator for Mac OS X.
NewsLife is a shareware product priced at €12 ($16) and is available to buy from our website. NewsLife requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is a universal binary.
Product Overview
NewsLife’s simple interface, composed of three panes, is intuitive and easy to use. The source list lets you organise your feeds however you want. The content area presents each article to you complete with thumbnails, quick navigation links and more. The side bar contains useful features like a search field, quick view buttons, filtering controls and the news bin, which acts as a scrapbook for any articles you have dragged into it — allowing you to quickly email these items, Digg them, post them to your weblog editor or have them read aloud by your Mac.
Simplicity
ThinkMac has been developing RSS solutions for the Mac since 2002. Macworld UK awarded 4 stars to our NewsMac Pro software, and our photo gallery program, InstantGallery, earned 5 stars and a Choice award from MacFormat magazine.
Our customers have taught us that they want a program that does what it’s supposed to do, and doesn’t try and be all things to all people. Our users already have great web browsers and media players - they don’t want their RSS reader to try and usurp them. We designed NewsLife to be their companion, an application that fits into your existing Internet workflow - your “news life”.
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